Sunday, February 05, 2006

Religion - the origin

Religion as we now know it is actually organized religion which has evolved over the years from a primitive and purer form. The ancient man realised that society was critical for his survival and must have felt need to worship the society. The idea of worshiping something as abstract as a society is disturbing so to solve the problem various symbols representing the society were identified and the man started worshiping them instead.

The idea of worshiping the society may not be very appealing today but if we see the world through the eyes of a Neanderthal man he was totally dependent on society for his survival. Man needed to hunt in group, it was ensured he was well fed even when he was unfit for hunting and the it was made sure all his desires were satisfied. Society was nothing less than what we call GOD today for the primitive man.

We can call this form of religion pure not only because this is the most primitive form but the forms which were to evolve from this model were actually adulterated by man to incorporate the idea of moral and laws. Its true that norms and values are integral to any society and law and morality are derived from these very norms but the use of religion to enforce the law and even moral values corrupted it to the extent that people were made to obey supernatural being.